Pseudo Fairytale
by niver
Summary: On the trek back to Konoha, Jiraiya speculates on this turning point and how it affects everything. /oneshot/


**This will contain spoilers for some of the more _recent _Naruto chapters. If you know what I mean by 'Orochimaru going on vacation' and about a-soon-to-come Juugo vs. Sasuke fight, then you're all set for this. You don't actually need to have read that far to understand, but I'm warning you now that there ARE spoilers. EDITED!  
**

**This is dedicated to Maria. And her oneshot smelling nose. :D**

**Pseudo Fairytale**

In the perfect 'happily ever after' fairytale, the mistreated main character, normally female, gets the love of her life, normally royalty, and they trot off into the sunset on a magnificent white stallion. In darker fairytales, the main character might rather die than sacrifice their lovers. But by the finale someone's always happy, there's always that 'perfect ending', whether or not it is bittersweet.

Jiraiya notes this is nothing like real life.

As a writer of fiction himself, he should be able to understand these authors: they quest to get away from reality, make their own little world where they control everything, so 'everything is just and fair and wonderful. It's an escape, an escape from all that the universe throws at us.

His own books -- as perverted as they may be -- do that, as much as he would like to claim he has risen above such things. Some versions the hero marries his heroine (after several descriptive sex scenes), his nearest buddy is not only a 'best friend' but a 'best man'. Others, someone dies, and it brings everyone closer together.

There are millions of plots in this world, each slightly different than the last, but there's always that ending, that happily ever after. 'You lose some, you win some, yet it will always weigh in your favor' was a line he'd once put in the preface of one of his books. He wonders if any of his readers got the insunuation of the bitterness he feels at ink-on-paper's little miracles.

The white-haired pervert supposed that the reason he was mulling over this down-beat subject was because of the news he had just received from one of his most trusted informants. He supposed that the information should please him. If he weren't travelling to Konoha with his newest tidbit, he should stop by some brothel and celebrate this small victory.

He should be the happiest he'd been in years . . . but he wasn't. In fact he was the opposite: silently brooding mentally in one giant ocean of depression. He supposed the way he was feeling made no sense; anyone else inhis position would probably be grinning cheerfully instead of sulking. Yet he couldn't bring himself to show such signs of happiness.

And the reason was because of one single comment, a single phrase, just a few words passing from the mouth of an information-gathering aqquantice.

"_Orochimaru's dead – Uchiha Sasuke was the one who did the deed we've all always wanted to."_

Wanted to? Before that turning point, learning that his former teamate and best friend had been killed by some too-strong-for-his-own-good brat, Jiraiya had actually managed to convince himself that he **did** want to kill the snake sannin.

"_It's pretty amusing, actually. Orochimaru was about to take the Uchiha's body, but apparently the Uchiha didn't like that."_

If this were a fairytale, then the evil witch would have just been vanquished – (he could imagine Orochimaru's angry glare at being compared to a _female_ magic user; he had always hated it when Jiraiya called him girly) – and the brave hero would be returning to his beautiful kingdom to tell the tale of how he had slain the witch, he would marry his chosen lady, be reunited with his best friend, and his long-lost brother, and the two witch's former comrades would set off fireworks, start bonfires and announce that day a holiday, not once sparing a thought over the fallen witch, since they are all two-dimensional characters who have no real emotions, remorse or empathy.

No fairytale here. A renegade sannin had died, Sasuke would not be coming home, he would never marry Sakura, or reunite with Naruto. He will continue on his quest to kill his brother, and two sannin, all that was left of the once great three, would most likely find the nearest bar and get as drunk as physically possible without courting death to wash away the emotions of pain and depression they _knew_ they shouldn't feel.

The news of his former teamate's death had shocked him at first. He found it hard to believe one of the Legendary Three got taken down by a teenaged avenger. Of course, they do say to watch out for the next generation of ninja, for they know more than you. 'The King' was to be protected and be wary of at the same time.

Next had come the rage. He remembered being angry at Orochimaru for being so weak, at his informant for springing the news on him, at Sasuke for doing it, at himself for letting his best friend abandon Konoha to get killed by a student.

The sadness was what came now, washing over him and making his thoughts so dark he could hardly see where he was going as he strode down the path to Konoha. Grief poured down his throat, into his lungs where it swirled aronud and made it difficult to breathe, like some sort of miasma. It leadened down his legs, making each step feel like an eternity, though in reality he was moving at a rather average speed. And finally it circled in his head, confusing his thinking as it desperately seeked escape from a set of dry eyes. Too dry for its liking.

But as a ninja rule, he would not cry. Besides, why should he? Orochimaru had experimented on fellow leaf nin, betrayed Konoha, turned his back on their sensei, himself and Tsunade, had even killed a Hokage everyone held dear. Jiraiya would never be able to forgive him for all he had done, but deep down he knew he still cared for his wayward teamate.

They had been a trio for far too long. For roughly two decades they had fought together, studied together, trained together, ate together, bled together, lived together . . . it was hard to laugh at Orochimaru's demise when he could remember an entire evening spent with himself, the snake sannin and Tsunade playing board games by candlelight during a power-out, Orochimaru loudly cursing the colour of his piece and trying to cheat in the most obvious ways, just because he knew it would make his teamates laugh..

His feelings (the ones he knew Tsunade shared – they had always been the emotional sort when it came to friends and family) really shouldn't exist, but he could no more control them than he could control a viper. (That bad pun made him chuckle despite his foul mood.)

His dark eyes swept up, and he caught sight of Konoha's looming gates. He hadn't even noticed how close to the village he'd been – good thing he hadn't smacked straight into the wall. As the guards nodded him through, he could only frown darkly at what would follow once he got to the Hokage tower.

They say 'don't shoot the messenger', yet he had a gut feeling that Tsunade was going to either punch him or her desk to vent her feelings at the death one of Konoha's number one enemies. The prospect of being the bearer of bad news was not a happy one, but information as vital as this could not be put off. So he began to trek to the Hokage's tower, and to a certain Hokage that was most likely sipping sake right now, unawares of the many people celebrating the death of a villain.

And in the end, it was almost a fairytale. An unfinished one – he doubted it would ever end – but a fairytale reject anyways. The 'bad guy' was dead, finished off by someone who'd crossed too many people to sleep with ease. The 'monarchy', a certain Godaime, would inform those who needed to know of the passing of the snake. Two childre — no, adults in their own right – would be greeted by bittersweet news that added, yet took away from the hope they harbored towards a certain other missing nin. The messenger, having travelled far to inform them of a single death would be given a bath and allowed to relax.

It was missing that unreal flair all works of fiction possessed, which could only tell him this was real life and he just wasn't lost in the pages of a book. He enjoyed living life and all its finest moments, but sometimes he just wished this were a fairytale so he could get his 'happily ever after'. For what he was living right now was nothing more than a . . .

. . . _pseudo fairytale_.

**The End**


End file.
